Trends
While severely dry conditions and warm temperatures took a serious toll on mountain lodging properties in Colorado and Utah, the better snowfall in the “rest of the West,”—California, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana created two distinctly different months for DestiMetrics* participating properties in 17 mountain communities. According to the most recent Market Briefing issued by Inntopia, the aggregated data collected by DestiMetrics revealed that as persistently warm and near historically dry conditions across much of Utah and Colorado created significant booking challenges for those destinations, improved conditions in January among the other states lured skiers and visitors to their resorts. In economic news, despite better-than-expected job creation, consumer confidence remained relatively low. When factoring in the weather situation, overall seasonal occupancy dropped, daily rates softened but remain ahead of last season, and revenues dipped for the full western mountain region. But two distinctly different narratives emerged during January between Colorado and Utah (CO/UT) and the rest of the West (RoW).
“What started as a late kickoff to the season evolved into a scenario with a distinct lack of snow in December and then descended into a snow drought in January,” admitted Tom Foley, director of Business Intelligence for Inntopia. “But it can’t be categorized as a western issue since participants in five of our western states have done better than Colorado and Utah—even with record warmth and less snow than usual—and in some cases, a lot less snow,” he added. “Because of the wide disparity in conditions, in this month’s data analysis we drilled down into the three different narratives: the full region, Colorado and Utah, and then the status of the rest of the West during January,” he explained.
Foley also clarified that approximately 60 percent of the data comes from Colorado and Utah resorts while 40 percent of the data comes from the other five states.
January for the entire western region
In a year-over-year comparison to last January, actual occupancy was down three percent as the Average Daily Rate (ADR) crept up 0.9 percent. The decline in occupancy was larger than the uptick in rates so revenues for the month finished down 2.1 percent.
Winter woes deepen
As of Jan. 31, the full winter season across the West continued to soften but with notable exceptions. Occupancy in-the-bank and on-the-books for November through April is down 4.6 percent compared to last year at this time while the aggregated Average Daily Rate (ADR) continued to move up for the season—up 2.9 percent but softening compared to last month’s uptick of 3.7 percent. The gains are due to higher rates in the RoW as declines were noted in CO/UT. The strongest gains were recorded for February, up 5.3 percent and April, up 15.1 percent. The occupancy booking pace during January was down 5.7 percent compared to last year at this time.
Differences in overall seasonal performance are profound between the two regions. Winter occupancy for CO/UT is currently down -6.7 percent compared to last winter, considerably below the slight 0.5 percent decline in the RoW region. However, CO/UT is holding some rate strength, with ADR up a slight 1.0 percent, although this is well below the 11.0 percent rate gain at resorts in the RoW as they capitalized on the better snow. The revenue results are dramatic, with CO/UT down -5.7 percent, sharply contrasting with the 10.4 percent revenue gain in the RoW region.
“Snow is the story,” commented Foley. “While Colorado and Utah resorts have added terrain in the last month, the lack of natural snow is taking a toll. And while the rest of the West is also struggling with very warm temperatures and a lack of snow, an earlier snowpack and some reasonable early and mid-month snowfall has made a huge difference to both the consumer and the resorts’ ability to capture them.”
Econometrics
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) finished the month up a strong 1.7 percent despite some volatility during the month and has now posted its fifth consecutive month of closing at an all-time high. “Domestic concerns about leadership in the Federal Reserve, international concerns related to Greenland and Canada, and skittishness about AI investment all played a role in last month’s wide swings,” noted Foley. “There is no question that Wall Street has been crushing it since the initial trade concerns back in April, but it is also clear that it is the only real star in the current economy as consumer confidence remains shaky and prices in many categories remain high,” he continued. “But strength in financial markets boost savings accounts and typically fosters confidence and spending although there hasn’t been much evidence of that in mountain communities since November,” he said.
The Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) released by the Conference Board dropped a stunning 9.7 points to reach its lowest reading in more than 11 years—since May 2014—and is now markedly lower than readings during the peak of the pandemic. Declines were recorded across all age, income, and political affiliation categories and is now 19.8 percent lower than January 2025. In sharp contrast, the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI) rose a moderate 3.5 points and is the second consecutive increase after declines in the previous five months. The modest improvement was seen across all age and income categories, but the index is down 20 percent compared to last January.
Job creation and the national Unemployment Rate were unexpectedly strong in January with 130,000 new jobs and the Unemployment rate dropping down to 4.3 percent, a notable improvement from its recent high of 4.6 percent in November. Most job gains were in the healthcare sector but in the hospitality sector, Food and Drinking services added 17,200 new positions while the Accommodations sector lost 10,600 jobs.
Keeping a close eye on
Snow and temperatures are the headline this month as CO/UT continued to struggle with both while further west and north in the RoW, conditions improved during January although warm temperatures hindered snowmaking in many locations. The amount of open terrain increased considerably just about everywhere in the participating regions, “but it is important to note that open terrain doesn’t take into account the quality of coverage, crowding, and difficulty level so the on-slope experience may be qualitatively different than the data indicates,” cautioned Foley.
Occupancy and demand booking pace were essentially unchanged for the full western region in January from the Denver reading, but there were stark differences between the CO/UT and RoW regions. Overall occupancy booking pace was down 5.7 percent, slightly better than last month’s 5.8 percent decline but a different pattern emerged.as focus turned to either immediate or deferred bookings. Reservations made in January were either for very short-lead—arrival in January—or much further out—for May or June. The regional differences were striking. CO/UT saw a 22.7 percent decline in occupancy pace and a dramatic plunge from the 2.6 percent decline recorded in December for arrivals in January through June. The RoW enjoyed a strong 21 percent gain in pace and a remarkable improvement from the 7.3 percent decline in December. For the remainder of the season with bookings for arrivals from January through April, the declines are even steeper for CO/UT—down 27.8 percent for January arrivals and 31.2 percent for March arrivals. Meanwhile, the RoW was sharply improved with arrivals for January up a whopping 52.8 percent while February is posting an impressive 24 percent increase year-over-year along with March up 6.1 percent and April up 7.7 percent.
The Dollars and Cents of the winter season show that there were 153,305 nights booked in January for arrivals from January through April and that translates into 22,426 fewer nights booked than last January—a 12.8 percent decline. ADR was down 4.2 percent and when coupled with the lower occupancy is resulting in an aggregated 16.8 percent—or $17.8 million decline in revenue booked this month.
International visits remain dramatically down with overall bookings from international markets down 34 percent—somewhat deeper than last month’s 33.4 percent reading. The continuing drop is being driven by deepening declines from Western Europe, Oceania, and Mexico although Mexico is still up 13.6 compared to last year. Canada once again improved—a slight 0.7 percent but remains down 40.8 percent from last season.
Length-of-Stay was one of the positive changes in the data and is currently at an aggregated 3.03 nights—up .10 nights from the same period (November through January) last year. “It seems small but that .10 improvement spread over tens of thousands of reservations really adds up,” noted Foley. “And longer stays are more efficient for lodging properties by extending the time between check-in and check-out as well as time spent on housekeeping.”
Economy properties post some modest monthly gains while Moderate and Luxury slide. Economy properties, while still down year-over-year, made up a little lost ground on both occupancy and revenue between Dec. 31 and Jan. 31, while Moderate and Luxury properties lost significant ground on both. “There’s an interesting twist in the data, which suggests that a poor snow season may actually help economy properties versus their pricier competition,” explained Foley.
Foley went on to offer some potential explanations. “There may be two things at work here. First, we know that over 75 percent of advanced skiers and riders stay at higher-end properties, and with the snow drought a lot of their preferred terrain is closed, perhaps suppressing their number of stays,” he observed. “The second scenario is that consumers may not be willing to invest heavily in lodging when the snow product is sub-standard. Both explanations are worth exploring, but the only way to really do that is extend the drought–and we’d rather see snow than prove the theory.”
The ADR for economy properties up to $400/night were up a slight 0.8 percent with occupancy down 4.2 percent—but this is the smallest decline in seasonal occupancy among the three tiers. Moderate properties priced from $401 to $750/night also eased rates a scant 0.5 percentage points but with little success as occupancy dropped seven percent for the month and resulted in the steepest drop in occupancy of the three categories. Luxury properties over $750/night captured a 2.9 percent increase in daily rates but posted a 4.9 percent decline in occupancy.
“Despite a sluggish start, ongoing snow and weather challenges at many resorts, and some economic pressures, western mountain resorts are showing some resilience,” Foley offered. “Other than Colorado and Utah, rate gains are the strongest we’ve recorded since 2023 and even in Utah and Colorado, they have managed to remain up slightly. As the remainder of the season unfolds and destinations wrestle with the impacts of changing climate and weather patterns, I suspect that new playbooks are being written on how these destinations can adapt and flourish if this season’s scenario returns,” he mused. “Along with the seemingly interminable economic uncertainty, we are also reminded that snow, our ace-in-the-hole, can be frustratingly fickle and unreliable,” he concluded.
